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AMD's FX-8150 Bulldozer Benefits From New Compilers, Tuning

04-18-2012, 12:10 PM

Phoronix: AMD's FX-8150 Bulldozer Benefits From New Compilers, Tuning

After looking at how Intel's Sandy Bridge processor performance has evolved with the new GCC 4.7 compiler and Apple's forthcoming LLVM 3.1 with Clang, here are benchmark results from the AMD FX-8150 "Bulldozer" Eight-Core processor with GCC 4.7.0 and the latest LLVM/Clang 3.1 development code along with looking at the performance impact of various compiler tuning flags for this latest-generation AMD CPU. Making things even more interesting, AMD's Open64 4.5.1 compiler was also tossed into the testing mix.

more proof that amd sucks at software.
its own compiler produces slower binaries than GCC. when their developers have had some part in BD from the first working chips, and still they cant make a compiler that is producing better binaries than GCC.

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Pentium4 also produced good numbers when the code was compiled specifically for its architecture. We all know how that ended. Maybe these days there is more interest in distributing optimized binaries?

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Pentium4 also produced good numbers when the code was compiled specifically for its architecture. We all know how that ended. Maybe these days there is more interest in distributing optimized binaries?

Long ago, I envisioned OEMs re-spinning popular distributions with hardware specific optimizations. Basically, Acmetech would sign with AMD, build PCs with AMD CPUs, Chipsets, and Graphics, and then respin/recompile Ubuntu with AMD specific optimizations and patches. I think HP and Dell may have attempted something similar, but it never really took off. Ultimately, I think that the efforts required to maintain a re-spun distro only made sense for static/persistent platforms such as game consoles and appliances.

Personally, I feel that AMD is in a unique position as a hardware manufacturer. They could release a console 'tomorrow' that would destroy the PS4 and Xbox720 when it came to performance. Looking at AMDs history, they would probably fail miserably when it came to licensing, partnering, and distribution.

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Personally, I feel that AMD is in a unique position as a hardware manufacturer. They could release a console 'tomorrow' that would destroy the PS4 and Xbox720 when it came to performance.

That would be the easy part. The hard part is enticing enough developers to build a self-sustaining ecosystem. That's almost impossible to do. M$ had to sell the entire first generation Xbox at a loss while also leveraging DirectX, just to establish a foothold in the market.

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That would be the easy part. The hard part is enticing enough developers to build a self-sustaining ecosystem. That's almost impossible to do. M$ had to sell the entire first generation Xbox at a loss while also leveraging DirectX, just to establish a foothold in the market.

I completely agree. However, you can even take this 1 step farther back than this - AMD's Bulldozer platform is actually very good, but its so drastically different from other x86 CPUs that nobody really feels like developing for it, and most modern software doesn't run that great on it. I like thinking of Bulldozer as a person with aspergers syndrome and savantism - the person doesn't fit in with the rest of society very well but is insanely good at one particular skill.

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AMD's Bulldozer platform is actually very good, but its so drastically different from other x86 CPUs that nobody really feels like developing for it, and most modern software doesn't run that great on it.

if you replace the word "developing" with "optimizing", I might be more inclined to agree. As we saw in the article, a lot of optimization can be gained from the compiler. AMD doesn't have to re-invent the wheel, they simply have to learn to sell cars.

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This. Gentoo FTW. Frankly, Gentoo is the only reason I would consider the Bulldozer.

Would be neat to see something like Gentu (Ubuntu + Gentoo lol) with a spawn of portage + aptitude... binaries for all different processors (you could do binaries for all different USE flags too, theoretically, but that would just be a HUGE undertaking with some packages having 100+ USE flags that's at least 100^100 builds). I think it could be done but that just makes the repositories that much more critical etc.

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I completely agree. However, you can even take this 1 step farther back than this - AMD's Bulldozer platform is actually very good, but its so drastically different from other x86 CPUs that nobody really feels like developing for it, and most modern software doesn't run that great on it. I like thinking of Bulldozer as a person with aspergers syndrome and savantism - the person doesn't fit in with the rest of society very well but is insanely good at one particular skill.

No, it's not very good, it's just a misfit. It is built for highly threaded workloads in an era where a dual-core can serve most desktops very well - typical workloads just don't multithread that well. And it's not drastically different than any other x86 CPUs, it's just a "let's see how many cores we can shove on that die" CPU. It may be adequate for enterprise servers, but it's not among my choices for the next upgrade.